I'm thoroughly intrigued by this up-coming holiday. Especially as a mom and wife of a pastor. I'm interested to know what you think about Halloween in relation to our faith in Jesus Christ. Is it just an innocent holiday, where kids roam the streets, dressed as little...whatevers...gathering enough candy to land them in the ER should they eat it all at once? OR....is there something more to all the hype the nearby stores and advertisements have to offer? Something much more synical, deep...evil. I must get down to the bottom of this question before another year rolls by. What are your thoughts?
:::Mary Kay:::
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7 comments:
Its all about your attitude...anything can be used as GOOD or BAD...its your attitude, and more importantly, its the influence and impression that you are giving to everyone else.
Jess, the original meaning behind the holiday is paganistic and evil. However, I think that most people have turned it into a what most people would call a harmless fun day. I think it depends on what way you look at it and what emphasis you put on things to make the holiday whatever it might be. I don't know if you and your husband at your church do any kind of outreach but all the churches I have gone to in the past and present usually put on a Harvest Celebration to celebrate Jesus' light and love for us. Last year the church we went to had over 500 people come and we had quite a few people start attending the church regularly because of that event. I think with the right emphasis on safe clean fun it can be an exciting night for kids. :) Hope this helps.
Beckie
I personally see a separation between cultural holidays and spiritual holdays, even when they land on the same day (Christmas and Easter - altho since becomming a Christian the secular celebrations are much less important and enjoyable than the Christian ones). I didn't grow up in a christian home, and so for me, easter was about the easter bunny (I did easter egg hunts until I was 20, then my dad told my grandmother we were too old...i still havn't forgiven him lol), and used to stay up late on Christmas even listening to the radio for Santa spottings. I did haloween every year until high school, and loved it. I consider all of those cultural holidays, and while their origin may not be the most "Christian", neither is watching House every tuesday. Yes, some people celebrate all hallows eve instead of just plain old trick or treeting, but that's their choice, people can be participating in pagan rituals any night of the week, that doesn't make the day its self (or anything else that happens on it) unholy. If the annual costume and candy night happened on any other day of the year I doubt people would have a problem with it (which makes church "costume and candy" nights as an alternative kinada....unnecissary?, just my thoughts).
As a mom (in 4 days..) I plan on taking my kids trick or treating. Still havn't decided on Santa and the Easter bunny, but they're so cultural, it's hard to stay away from them.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents (sorry it took so long to get there lol).
Ah! I wote this HUGE comment, and it's GONE! It never even showed up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I will try to sum it up like this:
We will let our kids dress up in cute/cuddly costumes (no ghosts, goblins, witches, warlocks, vampires, zombies, dead dudes, or anything along the lines of "halloween"). They may trick or treat to our neighbors' houses or people we know, and it will be explained to them, when they reach an appropriate age, the devestating details of the history of the "holiday". They can then make a decison of their own as to whether or not they want to continue.
Basically, we don't want our kids going to school on halloween when al the classes and schools habe costume contests...we don't want our kids to feel so left out. And we don't want our kids to show up at school the day after when everyone is showing off their bucket-fulls of candy, while our child is left empty-handed. And I don't want our children to sit in our living room and watch all the little children having tons of fun and getting to play dress up and get free candy right outside in the front yard. We will, however, should they choose to continue to participate, highly encourage that they mainly just stay inside (they may get dressed up), and hand out candy to the children who come aknocking on our door. We can take them out to a few houses if they want, just so they can get some candy, but...we are going to try to let our children be part of our family decisions as well. It just means that we have to be very thorogh in explaining why it could be a problem. It's hard to get into it all without typing a huge novel here.
Sorry to be the stick-in-the-mud on this one, but you asked. I grew up doing Halloween with my family and never personally experienced anything evil or satanic. I always trick-or-treated, and never had a problem with the holiday. But one year a man from our sister church in Venezuela came to speak at our church. He was the former Shaman of the village, and now the Christian pastor. He happened to come to the States for the first time a few days before Halloween. In the car on his way from the airpport he became extremely frightened at seeing the goblins, witches, etc. in people's yards. He hid on the floor of the back seat and shook. He was confused that we called ourselves a "Christian" nation when we had the same spirits he used to commune with in our front yards. He said it was not just the symbols of the ghosts and such, for obviously they did not have those same symbols in the jungle of Ven, but he could feel the same spirits. He was shocked and very afraid, and it nearly ruined his trip to the States.
I know you can say that was just one jungle man. But I think that if someone from thousands of miles away who has never seen our depictions of evil stuff recognized the presence of these same evil spirits, then there might be some truth to that. So I have decided not to celebrate Halloween.
This is a personal decision, and I am not passing judgment on anyone who participates. Especially now as a mom, I would like to dress up my little guy in a a cute costume (although we don't have Halloween in Latin Am.)
Well, that's my thought, sorry it's so long, and sorry to be the wet blanket.
Sorry I'm late on this - but have to say that while Halloween originated as a pagan holiday there is no cultural correlation between that and how our culture celebrates it today in the form of kids dressing up in cute outfits and getting candy. There is no evil in that. While I defend people's right to make their own decisions, I have to say that I find it frustrating when parents refuse to let their kids be a part of this event b/c of 'religious reasons'. After all, the Christmas tree and our culture’s traditions surrounding it originated from pagans as well - but we all (that I know of) still incorporate that into our Christmas traditions.
All that to say: There is no evil in dressing up for candy, there is no evil in putting up a Christmas Tree, There is no evil in writing letters to Santa, there is no evil in the tooth fairy, and there is no evil in the Easter bunny.
I think excluding, or singling out your children from harmless cultural traditions cause more problems than good for them.
If you want some academic and theologically based research and articles on it let me know and I'll pass it along to you.
Yeah...what she said:)
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